Governments should rethink urban housing, transport, schooling and jobs strategies to ensure that cities do not become inequality traps. Our report shows that a majority of cities have higher inequality than their respective national average.

Rapid growth in the world’s cities, driven in part by unprecedented migration from rural areas in developing and emerging economies, means that by 2050 around 70% of humanity will live in cities, up from around half today.

The data suggests that as cities get larger, they tend to become more unequal and thus could become drivers of inequality on a national level.